Cade...
When I walked away from Sophia, I fully intended on leaving her completely behind, but the memory of her keeps catching up with me. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get her off my mind. The wilderness of my mind is just so full of her. It's not only infuriating, it's exhausting. My world has only ever been law and sex. Now it's law and Sophia. She's not even in my fucking life, yet the memory of her infuriatingly still is. My feelings emotionally swing like a possessed pendulum—from caring and trying not to care. When I had confidently walked into her shop, I was feeling something I had never felt before; I wanted to see her again. When I walked out of that shop; I felt emasculated. Sophia stripped me of everything that I thought I was. I am not familiar with the word no and I am certainly not used to being turned down. But Sophia turned me down, and I sadly knew why.
The shame had reflected in her tired grey eyes, and that made me feel like shit. It was a bitter reminder of what I had asked her to do.
I made her feel that way.
I did that to her.
The Lapley way had hurt her.
When I said I wanted to start over, I honestly meant that. I wanted to take Sophia out for dinner, and just dinner. I didn't want to get into her knickers, I only wanted to try and get into her life. I just wanted her to be thinking about me in the same way that I was thinking about her. But in the cold light of day, she felt ashamed of what we had done. In the cold light of day, I had become a shameful regret for Sophia.
Now here's the thing. I have always been a player. A wealthy bad boy. It has always been my understanding that the ladies love a bad boy.
Good, is boring.
Good, doesn't get the pulse racing and the heart furiously beating.
Good, doesn't know how to satisfy a woman.
But you know what? If being good would bring Sophia back into my life, I will absolutely be good.
And you want to know something else? It would actually be easy to do it. Because Sophia brings out unknown parts of myself. But because she isn't in my life, I am struggling with those parts of me. Sophia challenges everything that I thought I was. Who I am, I don't even know who that really is anymore. I have always been a cold hearted man. A ruthless man. To me, women are all the same, just with different haircuts. But Sophia challenges all of that. My cold heart feels warm when I think of her and my ruthlessness has mellowed. But she doesn't want to see me and that is weighing heavily on me. When I'm trying not to think about her, I am doing just that. It's starting to eat me alive, just how much I want to see her again. After two weeks of trying to make sense of it all, I am with the only person who I think can actually help me now.
"Thanks for seeing me, Grant." I take slow strides into his welcoming room, glancing all around it with an harassed frown.
Grant gestures for me to sit down, noticing how troubled I seem. "I have to say I am surprised to see you, Cade. The last time I saw you, I distinctly remember you telling me to stick my therapy sessions up my ass." He sits opposite of me, trying to suppress his gloating smile.
"I'm here and you're expensive...so let's get started." Is my quick and brusque answer to him.
Intrigued, Grant leans forward. "You are and I am. So what is it that you'd like to talk about this evening?"
"I have met someone and it's driving me crazy." My words spill out from my tight mouth, angry and frustrated.
"Judging by your agitation, am I right in thinking that this someone is female?"
I nod, leaning back in my chair with a loud exhale. "Yes."
Grant thinks for a moment, still leaning forward in his seat. "You've met many women before, Cade...why is this woman different?"
Without hesitating, I give my honest answer. "That's why I am here, because she is different. I met her a couple of weeks ago and I haven't been able to forget about her. It's slowly driving me mad, Grant." My harried reply is marinated in my desperate misery—coated in obvious distress.
Grant sits back, thoughtfully tapping his lips with his index finger. "Does this woman not want to see you? Could that be the reason why you are so upset?"
With my head hanging low, I solemnly tell Grant everything. "As soon as I saw Sophia, I just knew I had to have her. I don't think I have ever wanted a woman more than I wanted her. She looked so lost when I first saw her. I feel as though I was the one who was supposed to find her, if that makes sense?" Grant just nods, not wanting to interrupt my opening up to him by saying anything back in return. So I keep on opening up. "Even though she looked vulnerable, as soon as we started talking, I could see strength within her sweetness. I kept swinging between wanting to protect her and admiring all that she was. The more we chatted, the more I enjoyed being with her. That alone, had me worried. I don't enjoy women. I enjoy screwing women. But I wanted more with Sophia, and that troubled me. Because I felt out of my depth with her, I needed to take back control. She was vulnerable and I wanted her, so I asked her to sleep with me. She was cut up about her boyfriend dumping her and I used his pathetic excuse for doing so, to selfishly get her into my bed. She had told me that her ex had said that she was boring and predictable...and I used that for my own means." Staring down at my clasped hands, I angrily continue. "I didn't just screw Sophia, I made love to her. As I laid beside her afterwards, I felt like she had opened up a world of possibilities for me. I remember taking hold of her hand and thinking 'yeah, I can do this' but when I woke up, she was gone. She had left me and my bed, cold and empty. Running with the wave of new feelings that I had inside of me, I ended up going to see her where she worked. I honestly don't know what I had expected, but I hadn't expected to feel so gutted as I did when I saw the regret in her eyes and the guilt around her shame-stained lips. So yes, I am upset because Sophia doesn't want to see me. I'm upset because if I had done things differently, we might have had a chance."
"A chance for what?" Grant studies me, patiently waiting for my reply.
Rubbing both of my hands together, I become anxious with his question. "I don't know." I give him his answer, then look down at the floor again because I honestly didn't know. I don't do relationships, but is that what I really wanted from Sophia? Dammit! I'm just so confused right now.
"From all that you have told me, Cade. It sounds like you genuinely care for this Sophia?"
My head slowly lifts, wanting to now look at Grant. "I do care."
He smiles back at me, nodding slightly at the same time. "Well, I see this as progress, Cade."
My expression pinches with displeased annoyance. "How is this fucking progress? I am slowly going crazy over here!" My fingers angrily rake themselves through my hair as I rigidly hunch over in my seat, feeling my anger squeezing all the calmness from out of me.
Still, Grant smiles. "You have been coming to me, off and on, for over four years now. In all of that time, you have regularly participated in casual sex because of your Avoidant Attachment Disorder. On account of the unfortunate maternal deprivation from your mother, you have always found it difficult to form relationships with anyone. You avoid getting close, to reduce the possible risk of ever being hurt. The fact that you have been coming to my therapy sessions, tell me that you would like to do something about that. Although you think that you can't, there is a part of you wanting to care about someone, Cade. I have always told you that when you meet the right person, your capacity to care would come out. Sophia, seems to be one such person. So to me, that is progress."
I grow angrier, incensed by Grant's lack of total understanding. "But she doesn't want me!" It's yelled out through my tightly clenched jaw. "That's not fucking progress!"
With narrowed eyes, Grant minutely shakes his head. "It doesn't matter whether your feelings are reciprocated, Cade. What does matter, is that you have those feelings."
"Well it matters to me! If I can't have her, I don't want these fucking feelings!" My face is screwed up in an angry grimace as the thought of Sophia not wanting me twists painfully on every single one of my organs.
Using his very best placating tone, Grant sits right on the edge of his seat to talk to me. "Cade, you don't have any control over what other people feel. Just because Sophia doesn't feel the same thing about you as you feel about her, doesn't mean that you won't find someone who one day will. All I am trying to tell you is that to finally care about someone, that is progress. You have always told me that you will never care about anyone, that it's not something you can do...yet you have met someone who has made you do just that." Once he knows he still has my full and agitated attention, he carries on. "It's okay to feel angry. Rejection is hard for anyone, especially hard for someone with AAD, but as hurt as you feel, you need to look at things in a positive light...you are beginning to have healthy and fully functioning feelings." He smiles again, thinking it is safe to do so. "That really is progress, Cade."
Sighing heavily, I continue to look depressingly down at the floor. "Well progress really feels like shit."
Grant agreeably laughs. "I know it does, but it will get better. You have come a long way. You may not feel like you have, but you've really turned a corner. Instead of focusing on the negative; that Sophia doesn't feel how you do. You have to concentrate on the positive; that you do feel how you do. Remember that, Cade...use it."
Sitting taller and exhaling a very long breath, I gruffly mumble. "I'll try." And I really will try, but I think it's going to take me a while to recover from what I feel for Sophia. To get to where I am now, has been one hell of a ride. I first came to see Grant because I thought I had a sex addiction. The deeper he dug into my past, the more understanding Grant gave me about my constant need to have sex with women. Having a steady stream of sexual encounters, makes it easy for me to not form any attachments with those I sleep with. If it's always casual, there's no need for using any emotion. I have never been able to express or feel emotion. From a very young age, my mind has been programmed to not feel anything. All feelings have been wiped away by my mother. I use that term so very loosely, because my mother neither wanted or loved me.
Yes, she was highly intelligent.
Yes, she was career oriented.
But no, she was never mother material.
I was brought up by many different nannies. If I ever got too close to any of them, my mother would fire them on the spot. It was like she didn't want me to bond with any other human being, not even my father. He too, was completely dominated by her. His way of coping with that, was to have countless affairs. He did so, right up until he died just over ten years ago. Theirs was definitely a marriage of wealth and convenience. Both my mother and father came from a long generation of affluent solicitors. So when they married, they quickly merged their professional expertise and formed a highly respected law firm, which in turn, afforded them to eventually buy what is now known as the Lapley Estate. As convenient as my mothers marriage was, the birth of me, most certainly wasn't.
As soon as I was old enough, I was packed off to boarding school. It was there, that I quickly discovered that the Lapley name meant something. And it was there, that I quickly realised how unloved I really was. I remember how the parents would excitedly come and collect the other boys at the end of term. How they would hug and kiss them, squeezing them so tight with the warmest of parental joy. I was often never collected, and if I was, it was by one of my many nannies.
I never got excited smiles or loving hugs and kisses.
I never knew what it felt like to be missed.
Not ever, did I get any of that.
I went to boarding school as an unloved little boy and came out an unloving young man. Sex was the only way for me to feel anything with another human being. It was the one and only thing that I would ever have in common with someone else. So I had sex. Lots of it. As I got older, the more aware I became of my need for unattached sex. I couldn't stop what I was doing, but I was definitely becoming more aware of what I was doing. Which is why I ended up here, with Grant. He knows more about me than any other person in my life. As yet, he hasn't been able to stop me from doing what I do. But he has helped me to understand why I do it. I may not always like what he has to say, but I do trust Grant. Over the years, he has been addressing my intimacy issues. My need for sex, is apparently my true need for intimacy—just on a casual level. In order for me to change my sexual behaviour, I need to confront my past. You could say, I am still very much a Work in Progress for Grant.
"What are you thinking?" Pulling me away from my thoughts, Grant sits back in his seat again and crosses his legs as he is curious about the thoughts that are causing my mind to wander away from our session.
Looking back at him, my reply is absorbed in honesty. "I'm thinking it's probably just as well that Sophia turned me down, I'm a bastard and I never would have wanted to be a bastard with her."
Raising his chin, Grant is direct with his softly said response. "Cade, having AAD, doesn't mean it's a life sentence for you. With the right person, you will one day have a loving relationship with someone."
Pressing my lips together, I quickly stand. "I'll have to take your word on that, Grant." I neither believe that to be true and I don't care if it's true. Right now, I just need to get out of here. "Thanks for seeing me at such short notice." With hurried strides, I am already at his door.
"Cade?"
"Yeah?" I turn slightly, being polite enough to look directly at Grant.
"Don't internalise what you are feeling. Slowly but surely, you are getting there."
With an half-hearted shrug, my bitter words slip out of my mouth with such indifference. "Where exactly am I getting to, Grant?" Not even giving him a chance to answer, I'm out of his room and out of his therapy session in the blink of an eye. I know exactly where I am and I know exactly where I am going. I'm a fuck up and this fuck up needs a drink. I get away from Grant and his unattainable high hopes for me. All of those impossible high hopes are about to get washed away with the aid of a bottle of Bowmore single malt.
I need to kick how I am feeling, out of my system.
And by god...I need to kick Sophia, out of my system.